


Rogue Revenge

by Candamira



Category: Castle, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Case Fic, Crime Scenes, Episode Remix, Episode s05e06: Probable Cause, Established Relationship, H/D Pottermore Fair 2015, HP: EWE, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder Mystery, Post-Hogwarts, Retelling, Writer Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candamira/pseuds/Candamira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While tagging along with Auror Harry Potter's homicide investigation team for research purposes, successful crime novelist Draco Malfoy has earned Harry's love and the team's trust. Love and loyalties are tested, when evidence links Draco to a ritualistic murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rogue Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Lovely prompter, thank you for a perfect prompt, I enjoyed writing this HP/Castle fusion very much. It's an adaption/re-telling of an episode of the tv-series _Castle_ ( _Probable Cause_ , season 5) set in the Harry Potter Universe. It's not necessary to know _Castle_ to enjoy this fic. 
> 
> And of course I want to thank our awesome mods for this year's wonderful POTTERMORE fan fair! Reading all the imaginative prompts inspired by the POTTERMORE entries was a real treat. 
> 
> Special thanks go to my pre-readers, nia_kantorka and drarryxlover, who had to deal with a quite raw first draft. germankitty did a stellar job providing procedural knowledge, checking logic and action choreographies and SPaG-editing. Her ideas and insights made this fic a thousand times better. Thank you so much; I would have been lost without you! As always I relied on iwao to provide a fresh pair of eyes and see what we others had overlooked - thank you, bb!
> 
> I can't thank all of you enough for your help and encouragement.
> 
> Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> For [Prompt #7](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oKxFrF86d2c3FuVesbbG1NW8mLM0kphzpOwJLy225kY/edit?pli=1).

**Prologue**

She has waited long enough for him now. The sun is already going down, the goal hoops of the Quidditch pitch gleam like gold, and the small emerald embedded in the silver ring he gave her last year twinkles encouragingly. Funny how it reminds her of them both – the one she loves and the one she hates. Of Draco, the love of her life, because silver and green are the colours of his house, and of Potter, the most hateful person alive, whose green eyes flare up with disgust whenever he notices her. 

She looks down at the ring again, seeking for reassurance in its perfect fit around her finger. A perfect fit – that's what they are, Draco and her. She has known that since she laid eyes on him for the first time. He hadn't, unfortunately. It has taken her years of scheming and hard work, but last year it all paid off when he put the custom-made ring on her finger. 

She eyes it again: It's made by Cauldron Crystals, one of the most expensive magical brands for jewellery – she couldn't have asked for a better proof of his intentions. It shows how thoroughly she has convinced him. She has made him believe it, too: They belong together. 

It's getting darker, the gold of the goal hoops fades to brass, and the green eye of her ring blinks tiredly now. It's not nice of Draco to make her wait so long… or maybe… maybe he doesn't want her to wait for him, but is waiting for her! Her breathing quickens – it wouldn't be their first snogging session in the changing rooms, where it always smells of sweat and leather. 

On the way to the Quidditch shack she loses herself in her fantasy, the one she has been nursing for eight years. Her and him, in elegant, classic wedding robes, speaking the words that mean forever.

She opens the door, slowly and full of anticipation, half-expecting him to grab and kiss her as soon as she walks in. 

"Draco?" she whispers, squinting into the dim room. Tiny particles of dust are dancing in the last rays of sunlight flooding in through the small windows.

A sound reaches her ears. Someone is moaning, barely audible over the rushing of water. She runs to the showers in the back, with her wand ready and a Healing Spell on her lips.

The scene awaiting her makes her close her eyes and open them again because what she sees can't be true. But the picture stays the same. Her whole future falls apart before her eyes. Pain sears through her body, burns her heart to ashes in one blinding, white-hot moment. And then she is falling, falling, into endless darkness. She reaches out for something – anything – and what she finds and clings to for dear life is hate.

 

**Saturday**

Hannah Abbott opened the door to the flat she shared with Susan Bones. 

"Susan, I'm home," she called over the familiar creaking of the hinges and frowned when she almost slipped on the many flyers lying on the floor. As much as she liked living in Muggle London, it definitely had its disadvantages – the daily amount of junk mail left at their door was incredible.

"Susan?" Hannah crouched to pick up the leaflets and tucked them under her right arm, sighing at the weight of her handbag. With her left hand she grabbed her overnighter and entered the vestibule. She smiled; although she had only been gone for a night, she was looking forward to catching up with her friend. Dropping her bag onto one of the chairs flanking the small round table where they kept their keys, she looked around for Susan once more. 

"Susan? Are you here?" The door clicked shut behind her, and she let go of her valise. After flipping through the brochures, she put the small stack down on the table and turned to the living room. Her smile froze at the sight awaiting her. A huge red stain glistened wetly on the white flokati rug lying in front of the sofa. 

Alarmed, she took a hesitant step forward, looking around for a bottle which would tell her that the stain was only due to a mishap with Susan's beloved Cabernet Sauvignon. But no; no bottle, no glass, no shards could be seen, and Hannah became aware of the utter silence in the flat. A big drop of lukewarm liquid hit her cheek, causing her to almost jump out of her skin. She touched it with her fingertips; they were red when she lifted them into sight. 

With a disquieting feeling spreading in her stomach, she looked up—and screamed.

Susan's dead eyes stared down at her. She was wrapped in razor wire – one string ran straight across her face – and hung on the ceiling. Her hands and feet were bound to hooks, forcing her body into a pose that would have been torture if she had still been alive. Stains of blood bloomed all over Susan's white dress where the razor wire had pierced her skin through the fabric, and her red locks trailed down the sides of her head. 

Hannah pressed a hand to her mouth, unable to look away. A strange symbol was carved into Susan's forehead, the wound still oozing blood.

**ooxoo**

The sounds of the Auror team securing the crime scene echoed through the hallway, and Senior Auror Harry Potter half-heartedly pulled at Draco Malfoy's hair to make him break the kiss. "Not here! They're just around the corner!"

Sometimes, he found his boyfriend's penchant for making out just before they entered a crime scene a bit disturbing. But being an Auror had taught him long ago that life was short and every day could be the last. And the Crime Scene Aurors would be bustling all over the place anyway. 

So Harry slung his arms around Draco's neck and melted into the kiss as Draco shoved a leg between his and pushed him up against the wall once more. Draco's lips were hot on his, the wall was cold against his back, and the heavy fabric of his Auror robe caught on the rough bricks. The fresh herbal scent of Draco's aftershave washed over him, refreshing like a summer breeze. Nothing could be more different from the smell of blood and death that awaited him around the corner.

There was nothing wrong in allowing himself a few minutes of dirty groping and kissing that would linger in the back of his mind and remind him of the good things in life while he would track down another murderer.

**ooxoo**

Harry snapped on evidence gloves and passed on a pair to Draco, their steps echoing in the hallway as they rounded the corner and walked towards the flat of the newest murder victim. "So, did you get some writing done?" Harry asked in a last-ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable.

"Yes – as Mother and Scorpius decided against gracing me with their presence for the whole weekend, I enjoyed the silence and seized the chance to write three chapters. Although, the crime scene still lacks something... you know, that special element that makes the reader shiver from horror, yet want to know more at the same time..." 

Auror Ron Weasley met them at the open door. "Maybe this will inspire you, Malfoy. You couldn't come up with a more bizarre setting in one of your murder mysteries." He guided them into the living room where the body was waiting on the dinner table in an open body bag, ready for Side-Along Apparition to the morgue at St Mungo's. 

"The victim is Susan Bones, you probably remember her. She was in our year, a Hufflepuff. She and Hannah Abbot share this flat. Hannah called us when she came home this morning from a business-related overnight stay and found her up there." Ron gestured upwards. 

"Merlin!" Draco took a step back at the sight of the strings of razor wire dangling from the ceiling. "Who puts a body on the ceiling?" 

"Good question, I probably won't sleep for weeks," said Luna Lovegood, clutching her notepad and a self-inking quill to her chest like a shield. "And Merlin knows, I've seen my share of cruelties during the war. But I've never seen a body wrapped in razor wire and hung to the ceiling like a falling angel." 

She didn't look at Draco, but Harry sensed him tensing up beside him still and put a hand on his shoulder. Taking a step closer to the body and pulling Draco with him he asked, "Okay, Luna, what do we have? Can you already tell us something about the cause of death?"

"Pressure marks suggest strangulation."

Harry nodded, taking in her pale features. She really looked a bit shaken, and that was probably the explanation for her straight answer. Strange how he missed the whimsical theories she usually provided and which often served to take the sharp edge off the rage and grief he still had to fight in the face of murder after more than ten years on the job. He bent over the table and jerked up again immediately. "What about that wound on her forehead?"

"I've never seen anything like it. It's not lethal; considering the details, I'd say it was inflicted on her with a very cleverly modified form of Sectumsempra," Luna said. Harry darted a quick glance at Draco, who had walked around the table to gain a better sight of Susan's head. Sectumsempra was a difficult topic between them, but Draco acted as if he hadn't heard Luna mentioning the curse.

Bent over Susan's face, he said, "It's a symbol of some kind. Hmmm… Looks like a rune to me, actually."

"Do you recognise it?" asked Harry.

"No, but the murderer spent a good deal of time and trouble on it – it's got to mean something." 

"You're right." Harry climbed up a ladder CSA had brought to take the body down, lit his wand and took a close look at the barbed wire. He reached for the ceiling and had to stretch his arms to touch it. "Drilling the holes for the hooks couldn't have been easy, same for hanging her up here. They must have been quite strong, I mean, Susan had at least—" He turned on the small metal platform on top of the ladder and eyed Susan's body up and down. "135 pounds, a bit more or less, I'd say," he said. "Or they used a Levitation Charm." 

Without ending the Lumos, Harry sent a Detection Spell for magical signatures across the ceiling. When no red glow showed up, but only a barely visible layer of pink encased the hooks and strings of wire, he shook his head. "Very strange. No clear magical signature, and only a very weak proof that magic has been performed. I need CSA's report as soon as possible!"

Auror Blaise Zabini joined them. "CSA already gave us some news. They found prints in the hallway, but the flat is spotless. Krum says he's seldom come across a more thoroughly Scourgified crime scene as this one."

"So whoever did this cleaned up behind themselves," Ron said.

"And they didn't mind taking their time," Draco added.

Harry got off the ladder. "So they knew that Hannah was going to be out of town." 

He took several small phials out of his robe's pockets and started extracting memories from his brain with his wand to put them in there. "What?" he asked, meeting the eyes of his colleagues. "We all know that Creevey's forensic photographs are less than useful—they move! And when I need a picture of the exact state of whatever, I need a still. Anyway. I prefer looking at my own memories." 

He continued to feed the phials with little silver strands and quirked an eyebrow at Blaise. "What's the security like in this place?" 

"Buzzer on the front door, no doorman or security cameras. No magical wards, either, except the standard Securing Spells for the Floo." Blaise pointed at the fireplace at the wall across the sofa. "But there is no sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle."

"She knew them," Harry said with a grim nod.

They all exchanged glances in silent agreement. Then Harry, Ron and Blaise looked at Draco with expectation written all over their faces. 

"What?" he asked, raising his gloved hands in a defensive gesture. "What did I do now?"

"Nothing." Ron shrugged. "But you usually come up with a theory about the progression of events right at this stage of our investigations. Why do you think we're still letting you hang around, Mr Mystery Author?" He grinned and winked, not waiting for an answer. "So, come on, Malfoy, don't disappoint us. What does that Slytherin brain of yours already know that we don't?"

Draco pouted. "And here I thought I was accepted as an unofficial team member because I always bring you chocolate." He presented four small chocolate bars, wrapped in the gilt-edged magenta paper of Honeydukes premium brand. "Here, have one. You're insufferable when you're hungry, Weasley."

They all munched in silence, and as always, the expensive chocolate helped Harry to overcome his moment of gloom. He swallowed the last remnants of sweetness, then turned to Ron and Blaise. "Check the neighbours, maybe they saw or heard something. And I want to know what this symbol means."

Ron and Blaise left to knock on the doors of the other flats along the hallway.

"You know," Harry said to Draco, "if Susan knew her killer, it's possible that Hannah can shed some light on this."

**ooxoo**

"Every time I close my eyes I see her hanging there." Hannah Abbott's voice wavered and her eyes were full of tears. She sat in one of the small armchairs gathered around a low table, her shoulders hunched, resting her elbows on her thighs.

Harry preferred the lounge of their floor at the Ministry for questioning witnesses who weren't suspects. It provided a more informal atmosphere which helped to get people talking. "What did she do for a living?" he asked. 

"She was an insurance broker for commercial real estate. Burrymore Insurance."

Harry was taking notes, but interrupted his scribbling at her words. "She worked in a Muggle company?"

Hannah nodded. "Since the war her magic had weakened. At St Mungo's they had told her that it was a psychic reaction to the war and that she might end up as a Squib. That's why we moved here and she applied for a Muggle job."

"Thank you." Harry plucked his quill out of the air again and scribbled some notes on his pad, a picture of the lively Susan in their eighth year flashing through his mind. 

"Did she have friends?" he heard Draco ask.

Hannah's voice sounded choked when she said, "Except me, you mean? She had become very shy. And a workaholic. I had to drag her out of the house."

Harry looked up from his notepad. "So no boyfriend, then?"

Hannah pressed her lips together and shook her head. But then she paused and lifted red-rimmed eyes up to Harry. "Actually... she just started dating someone. Maybe six weeks ago."

"You know who?" Draco asked, handing her a white handkerchief that was folded into a perfect square, ironed, and showed his initials in one corner.

She carefully dabbed the overflowing tears from her lashes. "That's the thing – she never did say... She acted like it was a secret, so maybe he was married or something." It sounded like a question. She swallowed. "But he bought her jewellery, and took her to these fancy dinners." Her lower lip quivered. "She said no one's ever treated her that way before."

"Did she tell you anything else about this man?" Harry put his notes and quill on the table and bent forward in his armchair, hands folded between his knees. "Where he worked, where they met?"

Hannah Abbott shrugged, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. "No," she whispered. "All she said was he was her fairy-tale prince. Rich, handsome, and generous."

Harry couldn't help but dash a glance at Draco.

**ooxoo**

Draco sat down on the edge of an abandoned desk in front of the murder board to which Harry had already Spellotaped Creevey's photos of the crime scene and was busy writing down what information they had so far.

Staring at Susan Bones's dead face and the rune on her forehead, Draco sighed. "Some fairy tale… I tell you, this story is about a lot more than an affair with a married man."

Blaise appeared at his side just as Harry put the chalk down and turned around. "But we don't know what until we find him. Blaise, get on Susan's phone records, see if you can identify that bloke."

"Yes, Master Harry Potter sir. Blaise will hurry, Master Harry Potter sir!" Blaise said, grimacing and bowing like a house-elf. With a nod at the pictures on the board he added, "You're right concerning Creevey's photographs, it's disturbing to watch a dead witch's head move. How's that possible?"

"His hands tremble so much, he can't even take an unmoving picture of an unmoving subject." 

"Anything on that rune yet?" Draco asked. 

"Already Fire-called Professor McGonagall, she'll pass it on to Professor Babbling. Merlin, Bathsheba Babbling… I was in her class for Ancient Runes, but I hardly remember her face. We used to say that with all those wrinkles she looked like an ancient rune herself..." Blaise stared into the middle distance for a moment, then hurried off.

Draco scowled and returned his gaze to the pictures on the murder board. When the thought hit him, he sat up and inhaled audibly. 

"What?" Harry asked.

"The way they left the body, the time it took... whoever did this—they enjoyed it."

**ooxoo**

Luna walked Harry and Draco to the morgue table. "I really wish Hermione would approve my request for a weekly atmospheric cleansing of our facilities here by a Feng Shui master. I mean, she's Head Auror, it's her responsibility to make sure our work conditions are acceptable! Or what about you? You're Senior Auror, maybe your word will make a stronger impact than mine? Can you see the darkness pooling in the corners?" She drew a circle in the air with her wand. "All these people in my drawers..." She patted one of the stainless-steel drawers. "You can't imagine how much negative energy they exude. I think the Nargles feast on it, they've become a real plague… Speaking of Nargles, where's my—" Looking around with her big blue eyes she started checking the many pockets of her work robe.

"Are you looking for this?" Draco asked and pulled her wand out of the thick topknot she had pinned up with it not a minute ago. Her dirty blond hair cascaded down her back and she started plaiting it, the result being rather messy. 

Harry sighed. "Luna…" 

"Sorry, Harry. Facts. I know." Throwing the plait over her shoulder, she straightened up, snatched her wand out of Draco's hand and walked the last steps to the morgue table. "If she did have a boyfriend, nothing happened that night. No signs of sexual activity… or assault." 

A flick of her wand, and the white sheet covering the body folded back to reveal Susan Bones's head and shoulders. "Cause of death was strangulation." She followed a dark line running across Susan's throat with the tip of her wand. "Not enough abrasion for a rope, looks more as if the killer used a scarf." 

"Were you able to narrow down the time of death?" Harry asked.

Luna made a vague gesture. "Somewhere between two and three o'clock Saturday morning. Lividity and pooling indicate the body was hung from the ceiling post mortem." 

"Why would he hang her body after he killed her? And why in such a strange manner?" Harry looked down on Susan's face as if she could give an answer.

"A ritual?" Draco's voice was tinged with excitement. "You know, that's exactly the stuff my readers—" Catching Harry's admonishing look, he cleared his throat. "My apologies, er…"

"No, please," Luna said. "I think that would make for a really intriguing story, and you could include some creepy creatures, oh, I know, you could start with a scene in the Forbidden Forest where a Bicorn devours the body of a beautiful blond girl with dreamy blue eyes and a rune on her—"

Harry sighed once more. "Luna…"

"Sorry, Harry." She smiled sweetly. "Back to facts. Strangulation is a violent act, but there were no signs that she fought back. No skin under the fingernails, no bruising. _Finite Incantatem._ " The sheet unfolded to cover the body again. "So I did some checking. She was drugged. My tests confirm exposure to chloroform. Also, the killer was wearing gloves." 

Draco raised his eyebrows. "How can you tell?"

"Traces of talcum powder on the body. The same kind that's used for surgical or evidence gloves... The murderer knew exactly what he was doing." Luna shooed them back to the entrance and picked up her pad from a table beside the door. "Ah, wait," she said, scanning through the information. "There's one more thing. Though the rune was inflicted on her with Sectumsempra, which as you know is a very powerful spell, my detection spells indicated only a very faint trace of magic. We've seen this phenomenon a lot during the last months, it's typical for disposable wands, you know, the kind of crap they sell on the black market. They only last for two or three spells, and that's not enough for a wand to adopt its owner's magical signature. Draco, I have some more ideas for your new book, what do you think of telling the story from the point of view of a Bundimun, that would be a really unique—"

"Thank you, Luna. Bye." Harry shook his head in silent amusement. 

"Bye, and tell our highly-esteemed Head Auror I want that Feng Shui cleansing!"

**ooxoo**

On their way back to Harry's desk, Harry repeated what they knew about the killer, using his fingers to check off each point. "Ritualistic killing, takes pleasure in it, significant care, exhibited at the crime scene…"

"All the preparations, the symbol… and a faint, unidentifiable trace of magic," Draco completed the list and looked at Harry with raised eyebrows. "Does that ring a bell?"

Harry shrugged. "Not exactly, but … do you remember the two unsolved murders last year? The _modus operandi_ was different, but also very bizarre and though we couldn't find a link between the victims, we thought they were killed by the same person."

"Of course I remember, the _Prophet_ was full of the strangest theories from serial killers to Death-Eaters, which were all confirmed by a 'source close to the victims'." Draco nodded, then let out a snort. "They even printed a composite sketch of a woman they called Pandora, for some reason." 

Something about the sketch and circumstances had reminded Draco oddly of Pansy at the time, but he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it resurfaced. Pansy could be one mean bitch, true, but he couldn't think of a reason his childhood companion might have to start committing serial crimes. On the other hand… she had suggested to hand Harry over to Voldemort without hesitation. One might even say in cold blood. But no. The idea was too absurd. Shaking his head, Draco refocused on the present. 

"Yes," Harry said with a roll of his eyes, "the 'Pandora killings'." He sketched air quotes with his fingers. "Two homicides, no matter the apparent similarities, don't necessarily mean we're dealing with a serial killer – talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. Typical _Prophet_ drivel, if you ask me. But yeah, Susan's death is equally disturbing and weird."

Blaise ran after them, a small parchment roll in his hand. "Hey, bad news. Professor Babbling gave up on the symbol. There's some similarity to ancient alchemical runes, but she has never seen this one before. She promised to do some further research, but didn't sound optimistic about it."

"Fuck, er, thanks, I mean," Harry said. "Any luck on the phone records?"

"No, but Susan spent a lot of time calling a blocked number. Phone company traced it to an unlisted prepaid phone with a stolen SIM."

"So he planned ahead," Draco threw in. 

"What do you know about prepaid phones and blocked numbers, by the way?"

Draco quirked an eyebrow at Blaise. "I'm a regular visitor of Arthur Weasley's seminars on Muggle technology. Research for my last book, where a Muggle kills wizards because he thinks they are aliens trying to take over the planet. Which you would know if you had read it."

"Yeah," Harry threw in. "Pity he won't have time to read it in the near future, either. What about her mail, Blaise?"

"Nothing from a mystery lover. But CSA found traces of vanishing ink between the lines of some of the letters, like someone covering their tracks."

Draco sighed. "So what now? We have nothing!"

Harry rolled his eyes at him. "No, not true. What Hannah said, that the fairy tale prince gave Susan some jewellery... maybe he left a fingerprint on one of those pieces."

Blaise was already on his way. "I'll head back to her place, see what I can find out."

"Harry?" Ron approached the desk, his Auror badge glinting in the light of a low afternoon sun provided by the enchanted windows. It was really easy to forget they were several floors underground. "Can I have a word?" 

Harry gave him a puzzled look. "Of course." He got up and followed Ron into the lounge. "Okay... what's up?"

Ron paced the small room. "The inside of the flat was spelled clean."

"Yeah," Harry said, not hiding the exasperation in his voice. "We expected that."

"Right. But what I didn't expect is this." Ron waved a manila folder at Harry. "There were a few prints on the outside door and the doorframe. And CSA found a set that didn't match Susan's or Hannah's. It matches someone else's."

"Okay, whose?" Harry was getting excited, a fingerprint match usually meant a name, and a name often meant a breakthrough.

Ron all but ripped a sheet of parchment out of the manila folder and shoved it into Harry's hands. "Draco Malfoy's." He folded his arms before his chest, the manila folder sticking out from under his shoulder.

Harry laughed, because really, it was a silly joke, and if Ron expected him to believe—he looked up into his friend's face, but Ron's blue eyes weren't twinkling like they did when he was pulling a prank. The laughter died on Harry's lips and his hackles rose, sending an uncomfortable tickle across his scalp.

He examined the form in his hand. Two rows of five square boxes, each with the black swirl of a fingerprint in it, built the centre of it. Underneath stood the name of the person to whom the prints belonged. 

_...are a match to one Draco Malfoy._

The form was signed by Viktor Krum, the Head of Crime Scene Aurors. Harry frowned, thinking as fast as he could. "Er, no, that can't be right... you know, he probably left these by accident, he may have touched the door on his way in before he put on his gloves." 

He shoved the form back into Ron's hand and was about to leave the room when Ron said, "Yeah, that would explain it. Except... CSA collected the prints before you arrived." 

Harry's pulse stuttered at Ron's words. He glanced through the indoor windows at Draco who was studying the murder board. The scene of them both walking down the hallway to Susan's flat replayed in his mind, how he'd given Draco the gloves before they arrived at the door. And Luna had said that the rune had been carved in Susan's forehead with Sectumsempra, a curse Draco was all too familiar with.

"Get him," he told Ron.

**ooxoo**

Ron closed the door of the lounge and gave Draco the form with the fingerprints. Harry watched his lover frowning down at the evidence in his hands and hated the situation, hated being made to doubt Draco's innocence.

"Are you sure about this?" Draco asked Harry, still staring at his own fingerprints. 

"We are, yeah." Harry kept his face bland, but some of his inner turmoil must have shown because after a short awkward pause Ron took over. "Is it possible that you touched the doorknob and the frame on your way in?"

"It was open when I came in, but I guess I must have…" Draco looked up from the piece of parchment in his lap. 

Ron leaned forward. "Have you been in that building before?" 

Draco shook his head. "Not before today."

Ron's badge dangled from his neck as he bent even further down to look into Draco's face. "What about the victim? Are you sure you didn't take her to dinner or buy her jewellery?"

"Ron!" Harry said.

Ron straightened, his voice thick with defiance. "What? You know I have to ask."

"No, it's simple, okay? He touched the door when he walked in. CSA got the timeframe wrong. That's the only explanation." 

"Unless I have an evil twin," Draco said with a relieved smile.

"Twins don't have the same fingerprints. That's a common misconception. This was you." Ron stabbed the form with his finger, eyes burning into Draco's.

"Yeah, I know," Draco said, wide-eyed. "I was joking." 

Ron's gaze didn't waver. "Contaminating a crime scene is not a joke! You're tagging along with us for years now, you really should know better. I'll clear this thing with Krum. And you, watch your hands next time, okay?" Ron's stern features relaxed into a smile as he clapped a hand on Draco's shoulder on his way out. 

Though the situation had been cleared up, Harry couldn't shake off a sense of uneasiness. "Please be careful," he said and reached across the table for Draco's hand. Draco was just about to reply, when Blaise's hawk Patronus appeared under the ceiling and started circling above their heads. 

Blaise's voice sounded rough and tinny in the small room. "I've been through Susan's belongings. No sign of high-end jewellery, but from the empty spaces in the jewellery box, there might be some pieces missing. Canvass of the building turned up a neighbour who claims he saw someone heading to her flat at seven forty-five on Friday night. He got a close look right through his front door peep hole and is working with Dean on a composite sketch right now. I'll send it over as soon as possible."

The misty hawk vanished into thin air and Harry exchanged a look with Draco. "We need to talk to Hannah again, she might be able to help with identification."

 

**Sunday**

Ron Spellotaped the composite sketch on the murder board. It showed the handsome face of a man in his mid-thirties, with expressive eyes under elegantly arched brows, a pointy nose and very fair, back-combed hair. 

"Hannah identified him as Susan's boss." Ron rapped the picture with his knuckles. "George Burrymore. Managing Director of Burrymore Insurance Brokers."

"Any priors?" Harry sat in a chair in front of the deserted desk, arms crossed, and stared at the suspect's face. 

Ron shook his head. "Nothing major. Just a couple of harassment suits, but... he does have a sealed juvie file."

Draco, who sat at the side of the desk, perked up. "A juvie file…"

Harry jumped up and walked towards the murder board, eyes fixed on Burrymore's face. "I wonder what this blurry-faced bastard has to hide… Ron, send a request to the specialist for Muggle police liaisons, what's his name? We need permission to get the file through Scotland Yard."

Ron sighed from the bottom of his heart and left.

Harry tilted his head, scrutinising Burrymore's picture. "Good looking and rich, just like Susan's mystery man." He turned around to Draco, who answered his questioning look with a thoughtful nod. 

"And, like Susan's mystery man, he's married."

**ooxoo**

"She was such a glowing presence," George Burrymore said, when Harry questioned him in one of the interrogation rooms at the Yard which didn't differ much from those at the Ministry.

Harry slanted a glance at the two-way-mirror the room featured instead of a wall spelled to be invisible and behind which Draco was watching him and Burrymore. Otherwise it was easy to forget they weren't at the Auror Department. The faint stench of fear and sweat was the same, as were the worn floorboards and the cheap desk in the middle of the room. 

Burrymore's forehead showed deep, V-shaped wrinkles over his nose as he furrowed his brows. "You couldn't help but notice her." He looked up at Harry who sat opposite him. "It's hard to imagine anyone wanted to kill her."

"Were the two of you close?" Harry asked.

Burrymore sat back. "As close as I'm to any of my employees." 

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Friday morning at the staff meeting."

Harry frowned. "Friday morning? Are you sure?"

Burrymore blinked a few times in rapid succession, then smiled and said, "Yes."

"Not," Harry threw in, "Friday evening?" He raised his brows.

Burrymore looked down. "No, er,..."

Harry didn't let him finish. "So you didn't go to Susan's flat at seven forty-five?"

With a forced-sounding snort, Burrymore shook his head. "Er, her flat? No... er, no."

Harry maintained eye-contact with the man for a few seconds, then took a Geminio'd copy of the composite sketch from the file. "That's funny. We have a witness who saw you there that night."

Burrymore blinked at the picture, his mouth opened and closed, but he didn't say a word.

Harry put the sketch down on the table and shoved it towards Burrymore. "Mister Burrymore, where were you Friday night?"

"Er, I…" His eyes flicked from the picture to Harry and back, then he licked his lips and stared into a corner. Without looking at Harry again, he said, "I'd like to speak to my lawyer now."

**ooxoo**

"He's not talking," Harry said as he closed the door of the Observation Room after interrogating Mr Burrymore once more in the presence of his Muggle lawyer.

Draco kept watching Burrymore through the two-way-mirror. "I guess a confession was too much to hope for," he replied, turning to Harry. 

"We've got teams at his home and his office, we'll know more after the search. Ron talked to Burrymore's wife and she said he didn't come home that night." Harry paused, looking deep into Draco's eyes. "He... was working late."

"I guess... he wasn't at work?" 

Harry smirked, shaking his head. "No." 

They both turned to observe Burrymore's lawyer lecturing her client for a moment. 

"What if Susan only was his first? What if her 'glowing presence' awakened something inside him?" Draco asked.

Harry remained silent, just kept watching.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked, suddenly alert.

Harry squinted, shaking his head again. "The crime scene…"

"What about it?"

"The person who killed Susan was meticulous, but," Harry pointed at Burrymore, "when I questioned him, he got all flustered."

"So?" 

 

"So, if he put that much thought into killing her, then why didn't he have an alibi prepared?"

**ooxoo**

While the enchanted windows of the Aurors' squad room showed a spectacular sunset, Harry was sitting once again in a chair in front of the murder board and tried to find some sense in the information gathered there.

"Hey." Ron sat down on the edge of the desk beside him.

"What did you find?" Harry asked, looking up.

"Still processing, but so far, nothing in Burrymore's house or office that could connect him to the murder."

Harry knitted his brows in disappointment. "Did you check his mail and e-mails?" 

"Yes, there is no mysterious deletion from his hard drive, nor any unusual activity in his phone records as far as I can see. Wouldn't surprise me if he's done this before and knew how to cover his tracks."

"What about his juvie record?"

"A couple of fights, stole a car in his neighbourhood once, nothing that explains this." Ron gestured at the murder board. "Really wasn't worth bothering the specialist for Muggle police liaisons and filling out all the forms required by Scotland Yard."

"Oh, Ron, come on. So all we have is the girls' neighbour's identification of Burrymore? That's not enough to make a case."

 

**Monday**

"I might have found something that can help." Blaise approached Harry's desk with a winner's smile on his face, holding up a small, clear plastic bag. 

Harry snatched it from his hand. "A diamond earring?"

Blaise grinned down at him. "We found it in Susan's couch. CSA couldn't pull a print off of it, but do you see the design? That's custom. Cauldron Crystals."

Ron came over from his own desk and sneered at him. "And you know this how…?"

Blaise shot him a haughty look. "I recognised it from when Ginny and I went ring-shopping. Anyway, I called the showroom. They confirmed it's one of theirs." He pointed at the earring.

Harry sat up straight. "And did they keep a record who they sold it to?"

"Yes, I already checked the name and address. Both were fakes. But the good news is..."

"What? Come on, don't put us on the rack!" Harry nudged Blaise's shoulder. 

"Ouch!" Blaise rubbed his shoulder in mock pain. "Alright, alright! The saleslady agreed to voluntary memory extraction." Grinning even more broadly, he produced a phial filled with silver mist from a pocket of his Auror robe. 

Jumping off his chair, Harry high-fived Blaise. "You're incredible. This is a break-through, you know that? Let's go and use the Pensieve in Interrogation One."

**ooxoo**

"Okay, if we all want to go in... " Harry tapped the Pensieve with his wand. _Engorgio!_ "

As soon as the Pensieve had adjusted to thrice its original size, Blaise poured the memory into the basin. Looking down at the silver swirls, Harry lowered his face until he touched the liquid.

As always, he couldn't remember how he got there, but found himself standing behind the counter of the jewellery shop, squeezed in between Ron's and Blaise's shoulders. The saleswoman had slipped out of her uncomfortable-looking high-heeled shoes and stood awkwardly bent over, massaging one of her feet while securing her pose with the other hand on the glass surface of the counter. 

Harry looked around. Each of the showcases sparkled with the colours of polished metals and jewels, but something was off. It took him a moment until he realised that though he was wearing his glasses, the scenery was more than a bit blurry. He polished his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and when the view just wouldn't clear, he elbowed Blaise. "What's wrong with her memory?" 

"Myopic and too vain to wear glasses," Blaise whispered and pointed at the saleslady. Harry let out a groan. "That's worse than one of Creevey's jittery photographs!"

A silvery chime made them all look at the door. A tall lanky man with very fair hair approached them, nodded a friendly greeting and bent down to inspect the earrings and matching necklaces showcased in the counter. 

"That's our man." Blaise took a look at the clock hanging over the entrance. "For the record, time of purchase is a quarter to eleven in the morning."

Harry drew in a sharp breath: The elegant way the fabric of the man's robe outlined his shoulders and flattered his narrow waist was unmissable and spoke of an expensive tailor's work. And it was way too familiar.

"That's… wait," Ron said, narrowing his eyes, "that's... Malfoy?" 

In that moment the man straightened up and though his features were too blurred for a distinct identification, Harry couldn't deny any longer what he had known immediately when the suspect had entered the shop. 

Ron was right. It was Draco.

**ooxoo**

"There must be another explanation," Harry said, his voice rough from suppressed panic and anger, as soon as the door of Meeting Room One had clicked shut behind them. He threw his glasses on the table and pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes until red circles pulsed in the darkness. With a tired groan he opened them just in time to see Ron lifting his hands in a puzzled gesture.

"Like what?" Ron asked.

"What about Polyjuice?" Harry put his glasses back on, piercing Ron with his eyes. "Okay? It's somebody else. Someone who uses Polyjuice to look like Draco." 

"Damn it, Harry! I know you're desperate, but we found his fingerprints at the crime scene. We got him in a memory buying jewellery for the victim. The same jewellery that was stuck in the furniture underneath the body. It can't be a coincidence!" Ron didn't waver under Harry's furious gaze.

"Ron!" Harry half-shouted. "What are you saying? That Draco is a killer?"

"Whoa, no." Blaise stepped in, his palms raised. "None of us is saying that." He stood beside Ron. "All he meant is that before anybody else will look into it, we must do it. Before she" – he pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the vague direction of Hermione's office – "will pull us off the case because of conflict of interest." 

Ron nodded, blue eyes still fixed on Harry. "We start with his financials. See if there was any unusual activity around the time of purchase. I'll send Fleur an owl and ask for a list of his transactions."

Harry looked from one to the other, searching for a way around the dilemma. But he didn't have a choice. Like Ron had said, it couldn't be a coincidence. He hated himself for what he said next. "Fine."

He walked towards the door, jaws and fists clenched in an attempt not to scream or destroy something. "But we do it quietly, and he never finds out."

**ooxoo**

Blaise sighed as he took the report of Draco's financial activities off the leg of a small brown owl. Ron cleared his throat beside him. "You don't really think that Draco had anything to do with the murder, do you?"

Blaise looked up, meeting Ron's eyes. "Oh come on, he is my oldest and best friend!"

"Yeah, I know. The best we can do is try to prove that the evidence is wrong. Tea?" Ron asked, as Blaise sighed at the length of the parchment roll. 

"Please," Blaise said, and ripping the parchment into two pieces, he added with an evil glint in his eyes, "Make it two." 

When Ron returned with the steaming mugs, Blaise had already marked a transaction on his piece.

**ooxoo**

Draco opened the manor's door with verve, only to face Harry, Ron, Blaise and two other Aurors he didn't know by name, all not smiling and avoiding his eyes.

"Hey," Draco said. Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute, am I throwing a party again and forgot?" he asked with a smirk.

"This is not a party." Ron's voice sounded tired, and Harry still wouldn't look at Draco. Draco took the parchment Ron held out to him.

"Search warrant?" He drew a deep breath and forced a smile. "Okay, I get it. The fingerprints…I'm sorry. Lesson learnt. You can all go home." He tried to catch Harry's eyes, who still avoided looking at him.

"No joke, Malfoy," Ron said, and pushed past him into the entrance hall. 

"I'll take the study," Blaise announced, following him. 

Draco held the door open for all of them, waiting for Harry to explain the situation. Only Harry wouldn't.

"Harry?" Draco caught up with his lover. "Harry, what is this?" He glanced at the piece of parchment and back up at Harry.

Harry was still staring at the ground. "We found a piece of jewellery in Susan's flat and we traced it back to the man who bought it for her." 

Draco saw Harry's jaw work; this was dead serious. He reached for Harry's hands and startled when Harry finally looked at him with blazing eyes. "It was you, Draco!" 

Draco stepped back, not understanding. "What are you talking about?"

Harry shook his head and sighed. "According to the saleslady of the Cauldron Crystals shop, there was a purchase of diamond earrings for five thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight Galleons. You withdrew the same amount of Galleons from your Gringotts vault just a few hours earlier."

Draco didn't believe what he was hearing. "You looked into… my financials? You're investigating me?" His stomach began to churn and he grabbed the edge of one of the tulipwood glass-cabinets in which Narcissa kept her collection of antique vases to steady himself.

"Harry," Blaise called from the study. "Come here."

Harry turned on the spot and walked out of the entrance hall. Draco wanted to follow, but one of the Aurors stepped into his way. "What is it?" He wiped his clammy palms at his robe, nauseated at the thought of Harry suspecting him to be the killer.

"Hey! What is it?" The churning in his gut made him clutch his stomach. "Harry!"

Ron approached him, his usually expressive face blank. Only his voice, low and sad, betrayed he wasn't as untouched by the events as he tried to seem. "Draco Malfoy, you're under arrest for the murder of Susan Bones. I need to confiscate your wand."

Draco looked down and saw the handcuffs gleaming in Ron's hands. Ignoring the pain in his belly, Draco straightened his spine and said in a voice that was half challenge, half threat, "When this is over, you'll never hear the end of it, I swear." He pulled his wand out of the inner pocket of his robe and handed it over to Ron.

"Thank you. Now turn around, please."

Draco did as he was told. Cold metal rings closed around his wrists behind his back. 

"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in front of the Wizengamot. Anything you do say may be given in evidence," he heard Ron murmur over the rasping of the lock. 

Draco caught Harry's eyes, but couldn't read their expression. Wide and green, they followed him when the two officers guided him to the door.

 

**Tuesday**

"Let's start," Hermione said, closing the door of Meeting Room Two. She sat down at the table in the middle of the room and looked from Harry to Ron to Blaise. "Do we all need to be here? Don't you have a case to solve? How do you expect me to justify that waste of time to the Minister?"

"Hermione, it's always nice to see you in high spirits!" Ron smiled at her, then dumped the bag they had found in Draco's rooms onto the table and opened the zip. "Wire and hooks, identical to the ones used to bind the victim and hang her on the ceiling. There is also a shirt inside that has blood splatter on it. Krum says it's a match to Susan's."

"And what's Draco saying?" Hermione asked, leafing through a small stack of photographs showing said blood splatter. 

"Well," Blaise said, "that he's never seen any of it in his life."

"Hermione, he's not a killer!" Even Harry himself heard the imploring undertone in his voice and bit his lip. He had wanted it to sound like a statement, something he was one hundred percent sure of. 

"Then how do you explain all this?" Hermione fanned out the photos and held them up for him to see.

"Why are you all so fond of Creevey's photographs? Look how blurry the blood stains are! And no, I don't have an explanation. Except that the evidence is not the whole story." Harry swallowed. "Draco has taught us that. He's helped us so often, and now he should know that he can rely on us! Can't you see that this is exactly how he plots his books? At first, it all seems to be crystal clear and easy, but then he lets something happen that sheds new light on the case and suddenly the story takes an unexpected twist."

"Unfortunately for him, this is not one of his novels," Hermione replied curtly as she put the photographs back into the manila folder. When she looked up, her eyes were thoughtful. "That being said … I think you're right. Hiding a bag full of evidence in his own study… No. Draco is too smart and sneaky to make such a mistake. Once a Slytherin… you know the saying. And you also know I've not always been a fan of Draco Malfoy, Harry, but even I'm having trouble believing he did something so heinous. Except… out of stringent necessity." She shot Harry a look which told him that her thoughts were going down the same memory lane as his. 

Of course Harry would never be able to forget that Draco had tried several times to kill Dumbledore more than a decade ago. But he had been under a lot of pressure from Voldemort at that time. And he had never shown any signs of long-term damage, like PTSD. Still, that didn't mean he was in the clear – there was no saying what those experiences might have done to his mind, or his soul. 

Harry groaned. "So then what are we going to do?"

Hermione lifted her chin and flicked her bushy hair back in a belligerent gesture Harry hadn't seen her perform since her pep-talks to the members of Dumbledore's Army. "We do our jobs. As always," she said. Her face grew hard as she stared into nowhere for a moment. "You have three days. If you don't have any other suspects until then, you know that I'll have to pull you off the case because of conflict of interest." When she looked at them again, she was radiating energy and determination in palpable waves. Harry got wobbly knees from relief – nothing could withstand Hermione on the warpath. 

Hermione started barking out commands. "Ron, check his mail, scripts, notes and whatever else you find. If he was involved with this girl, there is bound to be a record." Ron all but saluted, and his badge swung in a circle on its chain around his neck as he turned on the spot and hurried into the direction of his desk.

"You, Harry, talk to his family. See if anyone else has access to the manor." She summoned her copy of the file and marched off to her office. 

"Hermione?"

She stopped to face Harry.

"Thank you," he said with a little smile.

"Don't thank me yet, Senior Auror Potter. We're going to follow the evidence, no matter where it leads us." Her voice was stern, though she was returning the smile. Her heels clicked on the worn floorboards like machine gun fire as she walked on. 

Harry's face froze and breathing became hard, as if a weight had settled on his chest. That was why Hermione had become Head Auror while he was still barely out of the ranks. He cared too much for people to make the really tough decisions. Draco's fate lay in Harry's hands now. Hermione had given him the chance to solve this mysterious case, but she would pull him off and arrest Draco for murder if Harry couldn't find the real culprit.

"Were you with him that night?" Blaise's question shook Harry out of his rigidity. 

"Oh, er... no, er, he… I was supposed to be, but his mother and son were out of town and then he said that he, uh… needed time… to write." Harry had slowed down his eager report more and more when it dawned on him what it sounded like. Looking up, he saw his own suspicious thoughts reflected in the frowning faces of his friends.

**ooxoo**

Harry sat down behind the wall that had been spelled to be transparent from his side only and watched Hermione enter Interrogation One. Draco, who had been pacing the room, snapped his head up at the sound of the door opening.

"Where is Harry?" he asked, halting a few steps from Hermione.

"Under the circumstances I think it's best if I held the interrogation." Hermione sat down at the table in the middle of the room.

"Come on, Hermione—this is insane! I didn't do anything!" Draco seemed too agitated to sit down.

"We still need to investigate, and you know that." She opened the file and pointed at Draco with a self-inking quill. "So, let's start with your relationship to the victim."

All the steam left Draco, his shoulders slumped, and he exhaled with a sigh. "That's easy – I didn't have one." He looked at the ground, still refusing to sit.

"Any idea how your fingerprints came to be at the crime scene?"

He grabbed the back of the chair with both hands, leaning in towards her. "We went over that. CSA made a mistake." 

"Viktor says they didn't." She held his gaze, quill resting scribble-ready over her pad.

Draco's jaw dropped. 

"Draco, if you…"

"I didn't know her better than any of you, less, rather! I don't think I ever talked to her, not even at school." He pronounced every word carefully, as if that would make them more believable.

"She was seeing someone. Someone Hannah described as handsome and rich." Hermione's raised eyebrows were an invitation to talk, to spill the truth.

"I'm flattered!" Draco spat the words. "But it wasn't me!"

"Draco." Hermione took the phial containing the saleswoman's memory out of a plastic bag Spellotaped to the inside of the file's cover. "According to this memory, which was given to us by the saleslady of the Cauldron Crystals shop, there was a purchase of diamond earrings for five thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight Galleons. Earlier that day you withdrew the same amount of Galleons from your Gringotts vault." 

Draco stared at the phial in disbelief. "But that's impossible! Can I see it?"

"That's why I brought it with me." Hermione stood up and walked to the wall facing the enchanted wall behind which Harry was watching. She pressed one of the runes carved into it. The rune flared up in a bright golden glow, and with the crunch of stone scraping over stone, a hidden door opened and a Pensieve slid forward.

**ooxoo**

When they emerged from the memory, Draco said, "Hermione, that is not me! And I didn't buy any jewellery, nor did I withdraw gold from my vault!" He spoke through clenched teeth.

"Then you need to explain this." She stabbed down at the silver, misty swirls in the Pensieve. "The withdrawal, the fingerprints… you need to tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Er…", Draco looked between her and the Pensieve, racking his brain for a possible explanation, but for once the writer's intuition which made him such a successful author of murder-mystery novels was letting him down He had … absobloodylutely nothing.

Hermione levitated the bag found in Draco's flat onto the table and opened it. "Your fingerprints are all over this."

Draco made a gesture as if calling heaven for help. "Of course my fingerprints are on it! It's my bag! But I didn't put that stuff in there." Draco started prowling around the room like a sleek hunting cat looking for prey that wasn't there.

"Then who did?"

"I don’t know!" Draco stopped in front of the wall of which he knew that Harry or one of his other friends was watching from the other side and turned around to her. "What about Burrymore? He looks a bit like me, maybe it was him at the store! That woman's eyesight is so weak, it's possible to mistake me for him. We know he was at Susan's flat that day, and he lied about it. "

"Burrymore alibi'd out." Harry watched Hermione watching Draco closely for his reaction.

Draco's face fell, he swallowed. "What?" He looked around as if the answer could be found in a corner of the room. "When?"

Hermione got up, too, but kept standing at the table, hands on her hips. "An hour ago. His lawyer got him to cooperate. Turns out he was lured there."

"Lured?" Draco started his pacing again, slower this time.

"Through a text message Susan sent. Only it wasn't from her. It came from a prepaid phone. When Burrymore showed up at Susan's, she told him she didn't text him, and sent him on his way."

Draco shook his head. "So why did he lie about it?"

"Because he spent the rest of the evening with a hooker. And didn't want his wife to know."

Draco let out a snort and finally sank onto his chair. Hermione remained standing.

"So," she said, looking down on him and supporting her weight with her hands on the table, her face only inches away from his as she leant forward. "What about you, Mister Malfoy? Where were you on the night of the murder?"

Sitting back in his chair, all colour draining from his already pale face, Draco said, "I was at home writing." 

From the way he dropped his gaze Harry could tell he knew that this wasn't an alibi at all. 

Hermione sat down, granting Draco some space. "And did anyone see you there?"

He closed his eyes. "No. As luck would have it, Mother was visiting friends in Paris and Astoria had invited our son to spend the weekend at her place in New York to watch her perform as Glinda in 'Wicked'. I was… alone." The last word was barely audible.

"So for the record," Hermione said, "you're telling me you have no alibi."

Draco opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. Instead, he stared at her face for long seconds, swallowing eventually and saying in a low voice, "I think I'd like my lawyer now."

"Senior Auror Potter." Harry had been concentrating so hard on each gesture and every word that he almost didn't hear when someone called him from the door. A young Auror stood there. 

"What is it?" Harry asked. He was very tired all of a sudden, and a dull headache had begun to throb behind his forehead. "Can't it wait?"

The young Auror shifted from one foot to the other. "I'm afraid not. His family is here."

Harry didn't want to leave, but he knew how important Draco's mother and son were to his lover, so he walked to the lounge where they stood waiting for him. He needed to talk to them anyway. 

"Where is Draco?" Narcissa's blue eyes were narrowed in her pale face, while Scorpius's grey ones glared at Harry as if everything was all his fault. "What's going on?"

"We found evidence linking him to a murder case," Harry said with as much composure as he could maintain.

"But this is madness!" Narcissa sounded incredulous. Harry had experienced her inner strength during the war, and knew to interpret it as a sign of probably great distress she didn't permit herself to show. "This is just madness!"

Harry gestured for her and Scorpius to take a seat on the sofa and sat down in the armchair facing them. "It's only temporary. We just need to find out the truth. Now, tell me who has access to the manor. Does anybody else have keys?"

"No, only us. Tipsy doesn't need keys."

Harry nodded. Tipsy was the free and – to her often-declared shame – well-paid house-elf taking care of Malfoy Manor, at least of the wing still inhabited by Draco, Narcissa and Scorpius. "Did Tipsy tell you about anyone or anything strange she might have noticed?"

"No, and you know her, she certainly would have!"

Harry nodded. Tipsy was the chattiest house-elf he had ever met. She took care of the Malfoys' household every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from nine to three o'clock, leaving behind spotless rooms, a huge table in the kitchen full of pre-cooked meals under a long-lasting Stasis Charm, and wardrobes full of clean clothes. She'd had a full-time contract in the beginning, but Draco had soon discovered that he didn't get any writing done with Tipsy bustling around, telling him about each spot on the kitchen worktop and every hole she found in his socks. 

"And there is a security system. Even if someone had a key, the wards would go off," Scorpius added. 

"Have you noticed somebody who doesn't belong, or anything else out of the ordinary in the building?" 

Narcissa and Scorpius mutely shook their heads.

**ooxoo**

Harry thanked the Auror who had accompanied him to Draco's holding cell on the floor beneath the Auror Department where he was waiting to be brought to Azkaban into custody.

"Hey." Draco's face lit up and he put his hand against the narrow bars separating them, wiggling his fingers at Harry.

"Hey," Harry said, linking his fingers with Draco's. All his doubts were washed away as he looked into his lover's grey eyes. He smiled, though his heart was breaking at the hopelessness of the situation. "Draco, whoever is behind this, whatever is going on... I will figure this out, I promise." 

Draco smiled too. "I know."

"In the meantime, you have some visitors." Harry waved for Narcissa and Scorpius to come into the cell sector. He exchanged a last long look with Draco, then walked out to give them some privacy. In the hallway he met Ron and Blaise. Used to their never-ending banter, their quiet approach alarmed him. "What?"

Ron jerked his chin, and they walked on together until they were out of earshot. Then he showed Harry a fat manila folder. "CSA are finished with Draco's mail. Some documents and letters show traces of vanishing ink, just like Susan's."

Sensing that there was more, and nothing good, Harry sighed and asked, "Where they able to recover anything?"

"They could retrieve a document which was written in invisible instead of vanishing ink." Ron's voice dropped to a murmur. "It was a story concept about how to commit the perfect murder." 

"Harry," Blaise said, "the character gets away with it by staging a crime scene so bizarre the Aurors can't see he's hiding right under their noses."

"It was like a dry run... on parchment, all the way down to the weird rune we found on Susan's forehead." Ron's blue eyes were sympathetic.

"That's hardly a motive," Harry said, fighting to keep calm. "He's done the same for his book last year – remember "Out With A Bang"? He didn't bomb Charing Cross Road to shut down the Leaky just because he wrote a novel about it. As in, 'fiction'?"

Harry decided to ignore the look his colleagues exchanged. "Draco had no reason, no motive to kill Susan, so forget any bullshit theories like that unless you can show me some evidence," he said hoarsely, turning his back on them. 

"We found letters. Dozens of them. Between Draco and the victim." 

Harry reluctantly turned around again and took the manila folder Blaise was holding out to him. It was heavy. Many letters, indeed. He leafed through them, and let out a sigh of relief. "It's not Draco's handwriting!"

"No, they were written by a standard self-inking quill. Like the ones Malfoy uses for his manuscripts. Harry." Ron's voice was rough, but he didn't look away. "They were having an affair."

**ooxoo**

Draco sat on the narrow bench in the cell, his elbows poking into his thighs, his chin resting on his folded hands. He stared into space, clinging to Harry's promise to figure out what was going on. Harry had sounded so sure when he had made it. But then new evidence had turned up, and Harry had looked broken when he came to fetch Draco for another interrogation by Hermione.

"An affair? That's ridiculous! I'm not interested in women! Harry, you know me, I love you! Someone is framing me!" 

Harry had said the right words to soothe him. "I believe you." 

But remembering his toneless voice and his sad, tired eyes, Draco doubted he had meant it.

Breathing became hard. He didn't see a way out, he was trapped, and bloody hell, he had no idea who was doing this to him. Or why. 

A shadow appeared down the aisle and approached him, slowly trailing a stick or a key along the bars. Draco startled and slid back on his bench, away from the grate separating him from the aisle. He squinted into the darkness with a racing heart; there was something evil in that slow step and the rhythmical sound of _a wand?_ clacking across slender metal rods.

"They say dogs can smell fear," a female voice said. "Did you know some humans can as well?"

The shadow stepped into a brighter spot where twilight fell into the room through one of the magically-secured enchanted windows, and Draco's eyes confirmed what his ears had already told him. "Pans?"

"Draco," she replied in the mocking voice he remembered only too well from school. He gulped down a growing sense of sudden dread – that tone never boded well.

"What are you doing here? Who told you that I was arrested?"

"No-one, darling," she purred.

"Then how—"

"I didn't need to be told because it was me who brought you here," she said, her eyes suddenly cold as ice. 

"Pansy—"

"Stop calling me that," she hissed. Before Draco could ask what she meant, she continued almost without pause. "The press refers to me as Pandora now." Pansy smiled in a way that sent a shiver down Draco's spine and made him retreat even further. He certainly hadn't expected that. So Pansy was Pandora, the notorious phantom killer the Aurors had been trying to catch for years. Inwardly, he cursed himself for not trusting his earlier intuition, swallowed and nervously licked his lips. 

"Very well, Pandora, then." 

"Thank you." She performed a little curtsey, making a travesty of the manners that had been drilled into them as children. 

Draco inhaled a shuddering breath and tried to find at least a trace of the nonchalance his father used to project so easily when he'd been caught in one of his machinations, but didn't want to reveal weakness. "Mind telling me why before they cart me off to that lovely North Sea island vacation spot our fathers … er, retired to, if you will?" 

Pansy threw her head back and laughed. "Your sense of humour has always been delightful, darling." She ran her wand over the bars again, and to Draco it sounded like a countdown. 

"How long has it been since I caught you and Potter in the changing room?"

Draco could only stare, utterly gobsmacked.

"That was in eighth year!" he sputtered when he could find his voice again.

"Right, Draco. It happened fifteen years, five months and five days ago. And do you know why I remember that date so very well?"

Draco started looking around for the Security Orb that must float under the ceiling somewhere. There, its red glow was blinking reassuringly, so it was working. Pansy saw it, too. "Oh, that. They can't see me, they can't hear you. They see what they expect to see. You, sitting there, looking desperate." She pointed at him with a wand. "Magic, remember?" 

Even in the weak light Draco could see that the wand was hardly more than a chopstick, one of these disposable wands sold at ten a Knut. Still, Luna's words during their visit at the morgue rang in his ears. Even with such a piece of crap, two or three spells could be performed. And Pansy wouldn't need more than one to kill him. His heart skipped a beat, and he raised both his hands in a gesture of appeasement. 

"Magic, of course," he said, and retreated to the bench to sit down. "And of course I remember that day."

"Oh, do you. That's good, then you won't mind I'll make sure you'll never ever forget it, right? Can you imagine what it felt like to see you fucking that Muggle-raised wonderboy? We were engaged; didn't that mean anything to you? You put a ring on my finger!" She held up her hand, and he recognised the ring. Silver and emerald. The emerald reminded him of Harry's eyes, and the thought that he might die in this bloody cell without ever seeing him again made him close his eyes and sway on the spot.

Draco threw caution to the wind. To hell with dignity and composure, he needed any help he could get. "Hello? Somebody? Help!" He ignored Pansy's amused gaze as he shook the barred door, but let go when he realised that it was the only thing granting him at least some slight protection. Instead, he turned and waved frantically at the orb, hoping that the Auror on night-shift duty would be observing the images it transmitted as he was supposed to do.

"Don't bother," Pansy said, looking at him like a snake would at a cowering rabbit it was about to devour. Breathing hard, Draco decided that caution might be the better part of valour and obeyed, retreating from the bars. 

"He could have had anybody, when all I wanted was you!" Pansy's voice had taken on a shrill note. Draco watched her with his heart thudding in his throat. She had gone mental, that was the only explanation. Her breath was coming in heavy gusts, a sure sign that she was close to throwing a tantrum. 

He inhaled deeply and put on an apologetic smile. He had once known Pansy very well. He knew how to handle her when she was being difficult. Dealing with his Aunt Bellatrix had been a perfect training exercise. He had to soothe her, keep her talking. If he remembered correctly, flattery had always been a very successful strategy to calm Pansy down. He let out the air in a long, steady exhale. Alright. It wouldn't be the first time he had talked himself out of a difficult situation. 

"But Pansy – Pandora, sorry – we were kids! Finally able to do all the stupid things teenagers are supposed to do. I'm sure you have moved on, too. Just look at you, you're every bit as famous as Har—, er, Potter ever was!" No need to mention that being built up into the most notorious killer in the last one-hundred years by the _Daily Prophet_ was a career path – if one could call it that – leading straight into infamy rather than fame. 

"I apologise, really, I do! I wasn't aware it meant so much to you, I thought you were just trying to meet your parents expectations, like we all did. Why can't you let it rest?" Draco tried to make eye-contact, to connect with the girl he had known all those years ago. But her eyes were only shadowed hollows in the pale oval of her face. She bared her teeth in a wild smile that made his blood curdle.

"You killed Susan," he realised, and immediately bit his lip because really, if he wanted to soothe her he couldn't have come up with a worse line. 

"Did I?" Pansy replied in mock indignation. "She's hardly my type. No, I prefer blonds, as you should know best."

Draco narrowed his eyes because as far as he remembered he'd been Pansy's only boyfriend at school, so if she thought he should know of other blonds… Realisation hit him like a punch in the gut – the two victims of the unsolved Pandora cases! Their pictures had hung on the murder board long enough to be forever present in his memory: They had been men about his age, and though one had bleached his otherwise black hair, they both had had a hair style and colour very similar to his own. 

He stumbled back and landed heavily on the bench, burying his face in his hands. The message had been there all the time, it had been a warning. Pansy couldn't have been more clearly if she had painted 'You're next!' in bold red letters on the entrance door of the manor! 

"Nice to see that you finally understand, not that I'd tried to be subtle… And concerning good old Susan, I really didn't have any reason to kill her. To be honest, it was pure happenstance that I stumbled upon her boss, one day in a coffee shop. If it hadn't been for his resemblance to you, she'd probably still be alive. But I knew immediately that I could use him. He was both inspiration and a godsend." 

Pansy pouted and gravely shook her head in a parody of regret. "The poor thing, she was so naive, grateful for the smallest courtesies. Boring, to be honest. No, nobody will link me to her. Here is a much more believable story: You killed Susan." She stepped closer to the bars. "After all, you commit murder every day, in your mind, for your books. It's not hard to imagine that you would… eventually cross the line." Her teeth glinted white in the dim light.

Slowly, the meaning of her words dawned on him. "Oh." He exaggerated the sadness showing in his voice. "You hid that murder concept in my flat."

"Take twenty points for Slytherin, Mr Malfoy. Well done!" Pansy's smile was feral as she applauded.

"Why are you doing this, Pans?" Draco whispered.

Her mood changed lightning-fast as she slammed her palms against the bars, yelling. "Pandora! It's Pandora now! And you know why! Pansy is dead, you destroyed her! I loved you, I spent eight years of my life playing the perfect pureblood girl for you, the best match, the perfect future wife! And you threw it all away for him! Of all people! You shattered all of my hopes and dreams, you ruined my life. Did you really believe I would just forgive and forget, no matter what I showed in public?"

"So you want revenge? Why don't you just kill me? Why didn't you kill me long ago?"

"Oh, I had many chances, believe me." Her tone of voice shifted again, from wrathful to not-quite casual. "You know, I thought I could live with it when you dropped him and married Astoria. But I always kept an eye on you, and when you divorced her and took up with Potter again, I knew I wouldn't find peace before I punished you both." She paused and inspected her fingernails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. Her voice was calmer now, almost contemplative.

"The plain act of killing is boring. Where's the fun in there? No, no, no, I'll get satisfaction the Slytherin way. It's more fun to… destroy you. And Potter." Pansy hooked her fingers through the grate like claws. "It's all about anticipation, the planning." She pressed her mouth to one of the spaces between the bars. "Watching you and your son taking a walk in the manor's gardens. You and Potter making love." Her voice turned into a hiss at these words. 

Draco swallowed and wished she would stop. But the whispering continued, kept trickling fear into his ears. Goosebumps formed on his skin, and his mouth grew dry.

"Standing in your living room. Being inside your life. Waiting until your writing career has reached its peak. Knowing that I will take it all away from you. That's what I like." She blew him a kiss.

Draco had heard enough. He stood up and walked to her, lowering his head until their lips almost touched. "You'll not get away with this. And if you dare to touch Scorpius, I swear I—"

Pansy laughed, sounding as crazed as Draco's Aunt Bellatrix had looked in the picture on the front page of the _Prophet_ on the day of her escape from Azkaban. With a last evil giggle she shook back her hair. "Please. What are you going to do? Tell them that I came here? Do you think that they're going to believe the lies of a desperate man?"

"Harry will."

She smiled as if he was kidding. "Even if he does, he cannot save you. There is no time. The Wizengamot has already filed charges, they're going to send you to Azkaban tomorrow. I have people waiting. For you." She stabbed the cheap wand at him. "You." Another stab. "You will not last the night."

She turned away and walked back to where she had come from, trailing the wand once more over the bars. "That'll be his punishment. Believing that you were innocent... not being able to stop it... That will haunt him for the rest of his life!" Pansy stopped in the doorframe for a last look back. "Lucky for you... you'll be dead." 

 

**Wednesday**

"We went through all surveillance material from last night," Harry said, fingers linked with Draco's through the grid. "There is no evidence Parkinson was in the Ministry, and there is no evidence that the Security Orb System has been tampered with. No ward alarm was triggered. We found the slightest hint of a magical signature, but that could just be a contamination from the last magical check-up."

"But I swear to you, she was here!" Draco heard the desperation in his voice and dropped his head. It was like Pansy had predicted, no one believed him.

"Draco…"

"I know, I sound crazy. A desperate story from a desperate man." He huffed. "It's like she wanted."

"You're right," Harry said. "It does sound desperate. But it's the first time this story makes sense."

Draco's head shot up, he searched Harry's eyes. "You believe me!"

Harry smiled and squeezed his fingers. "I never stopped."

Draco squeezed back and regarded their entwined fingers for a moment. Then he swallowed hard and looked at Harry again. "She's going to get me killed, Harry. I can't run, I can't hide. What am I supposed to do?"

Harry opened his mouth, but had no answer.

**ooxoo**

"I'm telling you, he's telling the truth! It's Pansy Parkinson! The whole way this thing is set up, planting evidence… that's a Slytherin plan through and through. Don't you recognise Pandora's _modus operandi_?" Harry tried to keep pace with Hermione who was on her way to Meeting Room One, followed by Ron and Blaise.

"But why would she do that?" Hermione asked.

"Revenge! Like she told him, she's taking revenge because he broke off their engagement. It destroyed her, as she puts it. Such a drama queen. We all had to suffer through break-ups in our lives, she's not the only one."

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face Harry. "Revenge is a very plausible motive. I remember Parkinson being of an unforgiving, scheming nature. It would fit. And what she said, that she was following him around and sneaked into the manor, that would explain how she got all the information she needed to set up her plot. How she got the key to his Gringotts vault, for example."

Ron stepped up. "You're right! It would also explain that video of Malfoy in the jewellery shop. Maybe Harry was right from the beginning – Parkinson could have used Polyjuice Potion. She could have easily picked up a hair while she was in the manor."

Harry nodded, hoping Hermione would see the cleverness in Parkinson's evil plot. "We know we can prove that it was her, we just need more time. But the Wizengamot has already filed charges, they'll send Draco to Azkaban into custody today. And you know what will happen there," he added for emphasis. 

Hermione sighed, tapping a foot and pressing her lips together. "Alright," she said after a moment of thought. "I'll try and gain us some time, but I can't promise anything. With any other member of the Wizengamot I'm sure I could find a compromise. But you know Percy, if there's a rule, he follows it. No matter what."

**ooxoo**

"No," Wizengamot member Percy Weasley said, wrinkling his nose as if he were smelling something awful. "What you are asking for is preferential treatment of a murder suspect!" His gaze shifted from her to Harry. "You want to sort this out, you sort it out after he's arraigned."

Harry didn't want to accept that as Percy's last word on the matter. He stepped into Percy's space, gripping his collar, and stared right into his blue eyes. "No, I don't think you understand! There's not going to be an after!"

Percy wasn't impressed, he pried Harry's fists off of him and brushed his robe as if to clean himself from Harry's touch. "If it's his safety you're concerned about, we're prepared to put him in protective custody." 

Harry snorted. "As if that could keep him safe! If she wants to kill Draco, she's going to find a way to do it."

Percy gave him a dismissive once-over and turned to Hermione. "Head Auror Granger, aside from your unsubstantiated claim for a murder suspect, can you offer the Wizengamot one thread of evidence of Miss Parkinson's involvement?"

"Not at this time."

Percy shrugged, smiling thinly as if he had anticipated her answer. "Then we're done here."

**ooxoo**

"We have to stop that transfer," Harry said to Ron and Blaise who were waiting for him outside of Hermione's office. They all stepped back to watch Percy leave the Auror Department.

Ron put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Harry. He's such an idiot, most of the time I can't believe we're brothers." 

"Thank you, but Percy is not my main concern right now. We need evidence that Parkinson was involved." He headed for the murder board, and when they were gathered in front of it, he crossed his arms and stared at Draco's blurry photograph hanging in the suspects' division.

"Parkinson needed access to Malfoy Manor. Get CSA teams over there and tear that place apart once again. Find me a fingerprint, a trace of her magical signature, a hidden Observation Orb… anything that puts her there."

Blaise looked at Susan's dead face, and said, "Susan was seeing someone. If it wasn't Draco—"

"—then maybe it was Parkinson under Polyjuice." Harry combed through his hair with all ten fingers. "Right. Head to Susan's office, search her files, schedules, client list, there's got to be something that ties back to Parkinson."

**ooxoo**

Harry sat at his desk, perusing his notes over and over again. It was better than doing nothing while they waited for Ron's team to find something in Susan's office, though he wouldn't learn anything new from them. He was just about to go to Interrogation One to check his memories in the Pensieve again, when Blaise put a cup of tea down on the desk.

"Just heard from the team in Malfoy Manor," he said. 

Harry looked up from the parchment roll he was reading, hope rising though he tried to clamp down on it. 

"Nothing, yet." Blaise's dark eyes dropped to the tea mug.

Harry picked it up and blew on the fragrant tea. "So it's going to happen just like Parkinson said, huh? We're not going to be able to save him in time."

"We're not done yet!" Blaise put his own mug down so hard that tea sloshed all over the desk.

Harry watched the tea dripping to the floorboards and seeping through the narrow gaps between them. If only Draco could slip through the bars of his cell as easily… When the idea struck him, he jumped off his chair, sloshing tea everywhere, and whispered, "How… how secure is holding?" 

"Don't even think about it!" Blaise hissed back, reaching for his own mug.

Harry closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "Blaise, we're talking about his life—"

"Harry?" Hermione knocked at the door frame, causing Harry to startle and Blaise to slosh more tea. "They are here." 

Two Special Aurors appeared at her shoulders, tall, muscular men with grim faces. Hermione stepped back, and Harry said, "I'll get him." 

He left the small group behind and headed for Draco's cell. It was like walking into the Forbidden Forest to face Voldemort, each step taking him away from a life he loved, towards a future he dreaded. A future without Draco. 

" _Alohomora._ " Harry held his wand into the red glow surrounding the lock like a bubble until it turned orange, then put his left hand inside. The spirals and lines of his fingertips lit up shortly, the glow turned green and the lock gave a soft click. He slid open the barred door and walked up to Draco who stood in the middle of his cell. Looking into Draco's eyes which burned into his, he fished the handcuffs out of his back-pocket. Draco lifted his hands, so Harry could close the cuffs around his wrists.

"Do you remember the first time we met to do some case-related research? At the London Library?" Draco asked.

There was so much longing in his voice, it made Harry swallow. "Yeah, I remember."

Draco's gaze got even more intense. "What I wouldn't give to be there now…"

"Draco," Harry said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "this isn't over yet. I promise you I will get you out!" He squeezed Draco's hands which were surprisingly warm and squeezed his back in a calming way. 

Draco's eyes still bore into Harry's. "It's okay. Whatever happens, it's okay." 

Harry swallowed again at the finality of those words. Forcing a small smile, he said, "They're waiting."

Side by side they walked down the aisle to the Floo where Hermione and the Special Aurors were waiting. The two wizards grabbed Draco's upper arms, stepped inside with him, and Draco's eyes never left Harry's until he disappeared in a green whoosh of flames. 

"Sorry," Blaise said, when Harry arrived back at his desk. He had spelled away the tea disaster and held up a fresh blue mug for Harry to take. 

"Don't be sorry. I don't need sorry. I need to find that bitch and put her in the ground." 

Two Special Aurors turned up at each side of the door frame. "Senior Auror Potter?"

Harry looked up, putting his mug down. Would he ever be allowed to at least have a hot sip of tea, for Merlin's sake? "What?"

"We're here to transport one of yours to Azkaban. A…" the taller Special Auror produced a parchment roll and consulted it, "Draco Malfoy."

**ooxoo**

Harry paced the length of his desk and watched the last misty wafts of a Patronus dissolve into thin air, when a staccato of heels on hard flooring announced a fuming Hermione who waved some parchment rolls at him. "Percy says they have no idea where the hell he is!"

Harry raised his palm. "Yeah, I know." Meeting Hermione's blazing eyes he reported, "Just got a Patronus from administration. The badge number on the form doesn't exist. They were imposters!" 

Hermione let out an annoyed sigh. 

"Parkinson," Harry said. "She set this up! She isn't going to have Draco killed, she's going to kill him herself!" He started pacing again, the soles of his battered dragon-hide boots squeaking at each turn on the spot. It was nerve-wracking and he was glad being given a reason to stop dead in his tracks when Hermione said, "Well, Percy is calling it a prisoner escape."

"What? They think Draco did this?"

"As far as they're concerned, he's well-connected, knows our procedure and has substantial resources. Percy instructed me to start a man-hunt." 

Harry stared at her with narrowed eyes, only listening with half an ear when she added, "Ridiculous, I know."

**ooxoo**

Harry walked through the light-flooded, modern part of the London Library until he reached a more secluded area in the back of the building. The furniture was older here, it smelled of old paper and leather, and the spines of the books showed gold letters. Sombre oil paintings in richly ornamented frames decorated any available surface, and a few armchairs were crammed into small alcoves between the dark wooden shelves.

He smiled when his eyes met Draco's, which gleamed mischievously underneath the dark-blue cap hiding his distinctive hair. Draco stood up and put the magazine he was reading down, opening his arms. 

"Thank Merlin, you're okay," Harry whispered into Draco's shoulder, hugging him tight and letting his sorrow drown in the faint traces of Draco's trademark herbal-fresh scent. 

"Thank Merlin you understood my message," Draco murmured back, his hand warm at Harry's nape. 

Harry lifted his head and kissed him. 

"Come," Draco said a long moment later and led Harry to the alcove to show him the magazine he had been reading. But Harry was too excited. "How did you do this? How did you escape?" 

Draco's grey eyes grew earnest. "I have a good and well-connected lawyer whom I now owe a huge favour. But the important thing is—I'm still alive." 

Harry rolled his eyes. "Percy has branded you a fugitive now. Every Auror in London is looking for you!"

"They won't be the only ones after the five o'clock news. And right now they're taking the manor and freezing my vault. I can't last long, we have to act quickly." Draco pulled the cap deeper down his forehead and retook his seat, disappearing in the shadows of the corner. 

Harry sat down in a second armchair beside him. "I've sent CSA teams to your place looking for any trace of Parkinson, and another team is going through Susan's office and flat again to see if there is a connection between her and Parkinson."

Draco shook his head. "That could take weeks. I was thinking down another line. How could she pull this off? How could she possibly get this video of 'me' buying those earrings? I saw at first glance that she couldn't have used Polyjuice because the man in the memory doesn't exactly look like me. Only very, very similar, especially in a blurry memory of a very bad observer. And then it hit me." He grabbed the magazine again and showed the cover to Harry.

"Celebrity Casting?" Harry asked. 

"You want someone to play a role? You cast it. I discovered this notice from two months ago." He turned the magazine so Harry could read it.

  
**WANTED:  
** LOOKALIKE AUTHORS  
for a private book club party

*like*

Stephen King  
*  
J.K. Rowling  
*  
Draco Malfoy  
***

**ooxoo**

"Yeah, of course I remember that one." The young woman welcoming them at Celebrity Casting waved for them to follow her to her desk. "Forwarded a couple of headshots to the client's P.O. box, but never heard back."

"Yeah… Can I get the address?" Harry smiled at her, not comfortable with the inquiring looks she kept throwing at Draco who had put on sunglasses to complete his disguise.

"Sure," she said, pursing her lips in a sour smile and opening a drawer.

Draco casually leant at her desk's edge and said, "Oh, er, and did you send in any Draco Malfoys?" He shoved the sunglasses further up his nose.

She sat up and pushed some buttons on her keyboard. Checking the information appearing on her screen, she said, "Just one."

"Then we need his contact information as well."

**ooxoo**

Harry sent Ron a Patronus to check the information about the P.O. box the photographs of the required lookalikes had been sent to. Ron's answering Patronus found him and Draco in front of the Draco-double's workplace, a vintage-looking café. The misty Jack Russell terrier jumped around them, its behaviour a stark contrast to Ron's message.

"The P.O. box was rented for a month and therefore paid for in cash. The owner left no forwarding address. It's a dead end." Ron's voice sounded disappointed and worried. Harry sighed and followed Draco into the café. 

Draco's hand squeezed Harry's as he took in the sight of the man clearing up one of the small round marble-top tables. "Look, it's me!"

**ooxoo**

The man served them coffee and sat down with them at a table in the window. "Yeah, people come up sometimes and ask me to sign your books. So I figured I might fit. But I never heard back."

Harry leafed through the case file and produced a Geminio'd copy of the diamond earring they had found in Susan's couch. Shoving it towards Draco's lookalike, he asked, "So, er, did you buy these earrings at Cauldron Crystals some weeks ago?"

"Yeah, that was for a reality show on store security. They sent me in to buy exactly these, really expensive ones. Never heard of the store or the brand before, but how would I know where toffs go shopping, anyway?" 

Harry and Draco exchanged a glance. Heartbeat speeding up fast, Harry took out the composite sketch the _Prophet_ had published of Parkinson. "Was this woman involved somehow?" 

The man looked down at Parkinson's face. "She looks a little bit like the show's producer."

Draco raised his brows and shot Harry another look. "You wouldn't happen to have her contact information?"

**ooxoo**

"What do you mean he's with you? How did he escape?" This time, Ron's voice matched the excited behaviour of his Patronus, he was talking so fast and loud that his voice nearly cracked.

Harry quickly checked the quiet library corner to where they had returned for anyone who might have noticed them, hoping Ron had also included the information he had asked for earlier. "Come on, Ron! I need an address," he muttered at the little dog Patronus.

"Sorry, Harry, I know I must sound like Luna," the message continued, just as if Ron had anticipated Harry's complaint. "Back to facts, as she would say: The producer's address is another dead P.O. box and the phone number is defunct." Ron sounded apologetic as if it was his fault. 

"And I talked to the bank. The corporate account that issued the cheque is closed and the contact doesn't seem to exist. But another cheque has been paid from that account, to a Burrymore Insurance group. Susan worked for them. Ah, wait, Blaise just came back from searching Susan's bureau… I'll get back to you in a minute!" As the Patronus faded away, Harry imagined Ron boxing into the air at the final words. Draco's bright smile told him he also knew this was a small break-through, a first faint track tying Parkinson to Susan. 

Instead of the Jack Russell, Blaise's hawk Patronus burst into place just above their heads. It circled the small place between the book-shelves while delivering Blaise's message. 

"Harry, glad to hear you found Draco! There was a telling entry in Susan's calendar. Six weeks ago she had an appointment with a certain Miss P for a site visit. Ron and I talked it through, Pansy was probably posing as a building owner looking for insurance. We think the address is for an empty property somewhere in the east of London. We're going to have a look at it! I'll send you two shrunk brooms with a Guide Owl which you can follow to the place. We'll meet you there."

**ooxoo**

Harry hurried out of the library, surprised at how fast nightfall had erased the colours of the day. A cold wind swept around the buildings of St James's Square, fierce and biting, and he wished he had thought of a cap like Draco. At least his Auror's winter robe, even Disillusioned as a Muggle coat, served its purpose and kept him warm. In the darkness the people crowding the pavements were faceless, nameless shadows, and Draco seemed to be the only real and breathing individual besides himself.

They walked to the small quiet park in the centre of St James's Square to wait for the Guide Owl. It announced its arrival with a soft hoot and landed on the back of the only park bench, two tiny brooms dangling from one of its legs. Harry smiled when he saw that Ron or Blaise had also thought of sending Draco's wand. He dug through his pockets for a treat, which the owl accepted with a tilt of its head.

**ooxoo**

They had long crossed the Thames and left the glow of the city behind, when they finally entered the darkness of an abandoned industrial site. The owl landed in front of a large building, hooted its farewell and left them to themselves.

Harry got off his broom and shivered, not so much from the chilly wind that had found its way under his outerwear during the flight, but from the eerie atmosphere of the place. The night was closing in on them, their wand lights only able to cut small slivers of brightness into the blackness that was thick as a blindfold, and he felt strangely exposed and vulnerable. 

" _Nox!_ ", he whispered, Draco's voice echoing his own. "You can feel it too, right?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, there's something sinister about this place…" 

Harry slung an arm around Draco's waist, and with the other hand he held his wand up, battle-ready. Draco leaned into him, his warmth and familiar scent a welcome comfort, and they waited in silence, meanwhile having a close look at the detached building rising up ahead. Harry counted three floors, but couldn't determine the purpose of the building. The ground floor was very high, the big windows and exhaust air units indicating a production hall, and maybe the upper floors were offices.

Most windows yawned black and empty, but a few in the upper left corner were lit. The lights flickered and wavered, and seemed to move between the rooms.

**ooxoo**

"It's unoccupied. Hasn't had a tenant for nearly a year," Blaise told them, as soon as he and Ron had landed in a small cloud of dust.

Harry pointed at the lit windows. "So who is up there?"

"Could be a homeless person looking for a place to squat for the night, could be just candles forgotten by some teenagers searching for privacy." Ron didn't sound too optimistic. 

A shadow of a human form crossed one of the windows.

"Did you see that?" Draco asked breathlessly. 

"Well, I guess that's her. Come on." Harry pointed at him with his wand. "Protection spells on everybody! _Protego! Cave inimicum!_ " Just to make sure, he added some Hex-Deflection Spells for good measure.

When everybody was mounted with all the spells the security protocol demanded, Harry waved his colleagues closer. "Okay, here's our strategy: Blaise, you go inside and take the stairs. Be careful, Parkinson probably set up some traps. Send red sparks out of a window when you have reached the top floor! Ron and I will join you then. Draco, you stay here, no matter what!"

Draco pouted. "But I—"

"I won't discuss this. You stay down here, or, on second thought, you better hide in the entrance. I don't want you to be exposed to an enraged Parkinson fleeing the building." 

"Harry, you can't—"

"I can. Don't make me Incarcerous you and hide you under a Disillusionment Charm. Not a nice experience, let me tell you!"

Draco hung his head. 

"And what exactly will we do to join them?" Ron asked.

"Well, we didn't practise those Bouncing Spells for nothing during Auror training, did we? We'll take Parkinson by surprise by jumping in through the windows. She won't be able to fight two fronts."

A sharp grin appeared on Ron's face. "Sounds like a plan to me!"

Harry looked at Blaise and Draco. "Okay? Understood?"

"Yes," they said in unison, Blaise's voice sounding eager, while Draco's was a bitter murmur.

"Then off with you. Be careful!" Harry watched as they disappeared into the dark building, gravel crunching under their soles. He hurried to send a Silencing Charm at their shoes, and also at Ron's and his own. 

"It's awfully quiet in there," he said to Ron after a while. 

"What do you want them to do? Shouting 'Finite Incantatem' every ten seconds? I'm sure they're fine. Blaise will take extra care and take his time doing so, and Malfoy… well, has he ever stayed behind when chances were he'd miss a showdown?"

Harry shook his head, already regretting not having bound and hidden his wayward boyfriend. 

"Ah, look, Blaise is already there!" Ron pointed to a window at the top floor, not far from the lit windows, from which red sparks burst into the night. "Ready?" 

"Let's roll! _Elasto!_ " Harry bent his knees and leapt up into the air, wand arm stretched out before him and aiming for the brightest lit window. He shot through and immediately curled into a tight ball to soften his landing, hearing Ron grunting from hitting the concrete floor with more impact behind him. Rolling to the side, he cancelled the _Elasto_ , got up as fast as possible and checked one side of the room, knowing that Ron would have his back. 

Floating candles were the source of the wandering lights, their golden shine revealing dirty walls and worn office furniture. 

Harry couldn't make out any movement, but wouldn't put it past Parkinson to lie in wait for them behind one of the dusty desks or shelves, using a Disillusionment Charm. 

" _Homenum revelio_!" he said, scanning the area for silhouettes or shadows appearing out of nowhere. Then he saw it: A shadow was moving behind a semi-opaque plastic sheet hanging in front of one of the broken windows they hadn't used for entrance. 

" _Stupefy_!" Harry yelled, and Ron ran forward to rip down the sheet that was billowing in the frosty wind. 

"All clear!" Ron held up a large plastic bin-liner bag which rustled in his grip. "It was nothing, just a bag, hung on a hook." He pointed at the wall above the window. "I guess that was the human silhouette we saw from outside…" He dropped the bag and walked back to Harry.

Blaise ran into the room, with Draco following on his heels. "Are you alright? The other room is clear."

"Yeah, the most danger we found so far are the floating candles and an empty bin-liner bag. HR didn't reveal any human beings, she's not here. The question is, why are _you_ here?" Harry stared daggers at Draco, but at the same time couldn't help being relieved to see him in one piece. He was disappointed, his hopes of closing the case tonight had been shattered and the fading rush of adrenalin left him drained. But Draco's life was still in danger, and he wouldn't rest until he had proved him innocent of the murder. "Let's search the room."

He walked to a corner opposite the windows to check the desks and shelves, and gasped. The candlelight slowly revealed a neat row of moving photographs stuck to the wall, showing Draco in all kinds of situations. The desk beneath it was littered with floor plans of the Ministry and Malfoy Manor, a prepaid phone, and a coil of shiny, brand-new razor wire.

**ooxoo**

"Good job, everybody!" Hermione said when she Apparated in beside Harry. "Thanks for sending the coordinates via Patronus, I would have loathed to come here by broom in this weather. Though, couldn't it have waited until morning? It's the middle of the night." She rubbed her eyes, but when she dropped her hands and looked at Harry, he saw them glinting with the thrill of the chase.

"You won't regret having got up," he promised.

"Once Pansy'd obtained Draco's prints from his flat she used them to build a latex model of his fingerprints. No problem if you're a witch and know your Geminio, right? Which is also a very useful spell if you want to make a copy of a key to a Gringotts vault. Though I still don't know how she fooled the Goblins..." Blaise held up said pieces of evidence with one hand. 

Harry nodded. "Surveillance pictures, floor plans of Malfoy Manor, a phial with some of Draco's hairs …"

"A map of the Auror Department and the holding floor including the locations of all our Security Orbs…" Ron showed it to Hermione. "She orchestrated everything, right down to the last detail. There's no way she could have gathered all that insider information on her own. We must have a leak in the department; we'll need to look into that." 

"She even implicated Burrymore to make it look like Draco was covering his tracks." Harry reached for Draco's hand who just stared at all the evidence made up to get him into Azkaban and killed.

"Hm." Hermione turned to Draco. "Why go through all this just to set you up? Why not kill you and be done with it? Why all this hard work?"

"Because dying only takes a moment. The preparation and anticipation, that's what she loves. She told me that she had waited all that time for the perfect moment to destroy Harry's and my life. Like I destroyed hers, in her opinion."

"Well, Draco, I'm glad you're alright." Hermione nodded solemnly. Then a smile lit up her features. "Oh, and it looks like you're off the hook. I've sent Percy a Patronus as soon as I received Harry's, and he will be dropping all charges. He was very impressed that we all were working such crazy hours, but of course he wants all required paperwork on his desk by twelve o'clock."

Draco relaxed under Harry's hand, so much that Harry put his other hand to the small of his back to prevent him from falling. "Thank you, Hermione." 

Hermione squared her shoulders, signifying that the private moment was over. "Teams are searching the area, though I don't expect to find her here. We'll keep the building under surveillance anyway. Also, every Auror in the city is instructed to watch out for Parkinson." She looked up at them all, determination ringing in her voice. "She won't get far."

**ooxoo**

Dense fog rose from the Thames, muffling the sounds of the night and limiting sight to a worrisome minimum. Harry cast a glance at Draco, who hadn't said a word since they had left the rest of the team. Draco was still an excellent flyer, but sat stiff and upright and his grip around the broom handle was so tight that his knuckles appeared white.

"You okay?" Harry asked, flying knee to knee with him, and slowing down.

Draco kept staring ahead at the river. "Yeah. It's just… finding that stuff of Pansy's… seems lucky." 

Harry tried to shake off the feeling of uneasiness that crept up his spine at Draco's words. "Well, sometimes luck is all you need… She can't hide now. We'll find her."

Draco sounded weary when he said, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Believing in me? I mean, given my reputation, my history… when you saw those fake love letters and the murder concept, it would have been really easy not to." 

Harry met his grey eyes and smiled. "Things have never been easy between you and me."

Draco smiled back. "Maybe that's what it all makes worth—"

Orange light hit Harry's broom from behind, accompanied by shrieking laughter. A Hurling Hex! Harry tried to keep control over his bucking broom while making a grab for Draco's hand at the same time. He missed it by an inch, and his broom reinforced its attempts to shake him off. 

Hanging on for dear life with hands and knotted legs, he slid first sideways, then back and forth until his limbs finally cramped with the strain of holding on. A last hurl of his broom, and Harry slipped off, unable to climb back on, though the fingers of one hand were still closed firmly around the handle. To make things worse, his wand was safely tucked away in his robe. Desperately holding on to his now-useless broom, which at least prevented him from falling too fast with its mad swirls, he started fumbling for it. 

"Harry! No! _Arresto Momentum!_ " Draco's spell slowed Harry's fall, who concentrated on getting out his wand while trying to regroup.

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " The lethal curse rang through the fog, and green light, blinding like lightning, illuminated the air around him. His broom exploded into a million sharp slivers, and he instinctively covered his face with his arms. With nothing left to hold on to, he hurriedly used both of his hands to fumble his wand free despite now being in free fall. When the twisted fabric finally gave way, he aimed roughly in the direction from where the curse had come. Without being able to see anything in the thick fog, he yelled, " _Expelliarmus! Stupefy!_ "

Draco appeared beside him, fair hair streaming in the wind. "Let's get out of here," he said and stretched out an arm for Harry to help him climb on his broom. But Harry pushed him away. "No, it's Parkinson. She's after you, so go! Please! I'll meet you at the Auror Department as soon as I'm finished here." 

Draco looked at him for a moment, then said, "Okay. See you there." Harry watched him disappear into the fog, still sinking slowly, falling and falling into the darkness beneath him. He wondered why Parkinson didn't attack him again; maybe he had been lucky and disarmed her and she was hiding somewhere. 

He hit the ground hard, curled into a ball and rolled until the impact had faded. Then he lay flat on the ground, frozen grass crunching softly under his body, and spied through the fog for Parkinson. She was nowhere to be seen, so he got up into a crouch and moved closer to the spot where he thought she'd stood when she had cast the curses. 

After a few steps he saw her. She lay on the ground, unmoving, blood running down her temple. He took another step forward when she sprang up like an attacking spider, hitting him full force, and causing him to stumble back. He flailed his arms to regain his balance, stumbled again, and dropped his wand. It disappeared between the high-grown clumps of grass, but as he fell to his knees to grope for it, Parkinson was behind and on him in a flash, pressing the tip of her wand against his nape. Careful to keep behind him, she scanned the sky. 

"Draco," she shouted around Harry's shoulder, "I've got your golden boy! Are you watching? Come closer, I want you to see this!" And into Harry's ear she murmured, "Think that I'll let you live? After all you've done?" But before Harry could answer, she started yelling again. "Draco? Come on! I want you to watch! I want you to watch as I take his life!" 

Harry's heart beat in his throat, when out of the misty darkness Draco's calm voice said, "Over here." 

He was aiming at them with his wand, and his eyes were slivers of ice as he walked towards them. Remembering his Auror training, Harry slumped in Parkinson's grip, and Draco yelled, " _Expelliarmus! Everte Statum!_ "

Parkinson was unable to dodge: she released Harry as her body jerked backwards, and her wand flew away into the fog. Harry scrambled away, out of Draco's line of fire. 

" _Everte Statum! Everte Statum! Everte Statum!_ "

Harry turned around and watched Draco sending hex after hex at Parkinson who clutched her stomach and stumbled backwards, her screams piercing the night as she fell over the stone edge shoring up the river bank, all the way down into the swirling muddy waters of the Thames. 

 

**Thursday**

Morning was dawning icy and grey as Harry walked up to Draco who still stood at the Waterman's Stairs leading down to the river near where Pansy had fallen and stared down into the water. The Auror Diving Unit was preparing for going down once again by casting Bubble-Head Charms. "They still haven't found the body." 

"They won't," Draco replied without looking at him. "She's not dead."

Harry shook his head and squinted against the first rays of sun finding their way through the fast-moving clouds. "Draco. What are you saying?"

"She enjoyed doing this to us. Those entries in Susan's day planner—Pansy's not that careless." Draco turned his eyes away from the dark water for the first time and looked into Harry's eyes. "She wanted us to find that place. She wanted us here on the riverbank, where it's a long drop down." He pointed down at the divers, then paused to stare into the distance. "All of it was to get us here so we help her do what she couldn't do for herself."

Harry opened his mouth to object, but Draco continued. "Disappear. Disappear so she can start anew and do it to us again. She never wanted to kill me – or you. She wouldn't have missed you with Avada Kedavra, if she had really meant to hit; she's very accurate. No, she only wanted us to believe it and drive us crazy with fear and worry."

"So what, you think she planned this?" Harry made a sweeping gesture with his arm, including the whole scene, from the divers to the Crime Scene Aurors working on the traces on the ground. "Quite elaborate for a set-up, if you ask me."

"How does a wanted killer stop being wanted?" Draco quirked his eyebrows and pointed down into the water. "It has to be public, it has to be final." He swallowed and shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his robe.

"Do you know how weird that sounds?" Harry asked, nudging him.

Draco just shrugged. "No one's going to go looking for her anymore."

Harry pulled him in a tight embrace. "You know what? We will. We will keep looking for her. But for today, I want to believe she's dead. Today belongs to us."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on [Livejournal](http://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/101360.html).


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